Quiet

I am a talker. I like to be surrounded by sound. It might be conversation or music or a podcast. There isn’t a lot of silence in my life. I have never been very comfortable with quiet. I run with headphones. I always have a queue of podcasts I am listening to. I often play classical music in my classroom.

My husband is a listener. He likes to be surrounded by quiet. It might be work or cooking or walking. There is a lot of silence in his life. My husband seems perfectly content with quiet. He’s not really into podcasts. He doesn’t really listen to music while he is working. He doesn’t try to fill our time together with conversation.

Today, I came to appreciate his side of things.

We are in Louisville, KY on a baby-free Spring Break, and we decided to go for a hike, one of our favorite things to do together. We went to the Bernheim Arboretum, about 30 minutes outside of the city.

As we walked, we saw families with small children, older couples, lone individuals, people in strollers, babies in carriers, people with walkers. There was some conversation, but there was a lot of quiet.

I finally accepted some quiet into my life. We were walking hand in hand on one of the trails, and we just weren’t talking. And it was ok. It didn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable. It just felt quiet. I could hear the birds. I could hear the wind whistling through the dead leaves. I could hear the conversations of other people around me. I could hear squirrels running up trees. It’s amazing how much you can hear when you stop talking.

There might be something to that whole quiet thing.